3 Facebook lessons for right now

OK, Instagram might be where to cool kids hang out. But Facebook is still the daddy (or mummy if you prefer, it is International Women’s Day after all!) in terms of active users. That’s why Facebook features so consistently in successful digital marketing plans, and why it’s so important to dedicate time to Facebook experimentation. With the aim of discovering how you can maximise the potential of this behemoth social media platform.

Fresh data out from Statista puts Facebook at 2.2 billion monthly active users. Seventh-ranked photo-sharing app Instagram had over 800 million monthly active accounts. Meanwhile, blogging service Tumblr had an estimated 794 million monthly active blog users on their site.

Get the most out of Facebook (without always having to pay to advertise)

If you’re a small business. Operating within a set geographic area. Serving other small businesses or local consumers. Then Facebook is where it is at, because this is where YOUR audience lives.

This means your digital marketing aim should be to build and maintain a healthy Facebook presence.

As we help quite a few small businesses to do just that, we thought it’d be useful to share the 3 Facebook lessons for right now.

We hope this 60-second run-down will help you successfully plan your own Facebook strategy and achieve pat on the back worthy results.

3 Facebook lessons to take onboard right now

1. Play to your audience.

So many of the business owners I help are intimidated by the sheer scale of Facebook and they worry that shifting algorithms mean that they now need to drop a bucket load of pounds into advertising to make a splash.

But if you take time to get to know your core audience and then create high quality content this audience values then Facebook will expand your reach, enabling you to capture more viewers…without the need for extra dosh.

Here’s the thing. If you remember that Facebook exists to make its audience smile, then create content that does just that, you’re onto a winner.

Example: We work with The Vanilla Room. A 5-star hair and beauty salon in Hornchurch. Our audience of women aged 25-55 prefer before and after make over content over anything else. So, we focus on that and post at days and times that best suit them.

2. Make it snappy.

It may be the case that you only have the first 7 seconds to make a good impression in a sales meetings or interview. But when it comes to video content for Facebook it’s even less.

We rekon on around 3 seconds to be exact.

So our lesson from 2017 is ‘make it snappy!’.

A tactic we now use in Facebook video content is to get to the point in the first 3 seconds. We then go back and detail things out some more in the last remaining seconds of the video. It’s the most effective method we’ve found for capturing the widest possible audience.

3. People want to be seen and heard.

The more our 2017 client content connected with a laser targed audience group the better it performed.

Right now, there’s tonnes of chatter in ‘Marketing Land’ about identity affirmation. Experts have spotted that people are actively seeking out ways to connect with digital communities that strongly reflect their identities, enabling them to cultivate their passions.

It’s nothing new. Ultimately, people want to be seen and heard, to feel included.

This means it’s critical to create content that relates to them. You can boost reach even further if you also factor in circulating news, cultural events or trending social interest campaigns that you think are likely to be important to them.

Action to take now

In 2017, we focused on Facebook as the social media platform of choice for many of the small business, local clients we help. This was a recommendation we made strategically because Facebook is where most of our client’s audience lives.

This won’t necessarily be the same for you. For your business to find success you need to take time to discover which social media platform best connects with your audience. You then need to think about which content will make them happiest!

Spoiler alert: There will be a healthy chunk of trial and error. This is fine.

2018 and beyond

Facebook is about building strong relationships, not simply growing the numbers. It’s about feeling the love.

So focus on getting to know your audience, curating and creating content that is relevent to them and targeting adverts wisely. That’s an approach that’s always going to deliver results.